RE­VEALED: THE TOP 30 MID­DLE EAST AND AFRICA TELECOMS SUP­PLI­ERS OF 2018

A lot of com­pa­nies can be con­sid­ered telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions in­dus­try sup­pli­ers – in fact, it’s safe to say the com­pe­ti­tion is fiercer than ever be­fore. But only a select few stand out above their peers. Pre­sent­ing: the cream of the sup­plier crop for 2018.

The com­pany claims they are the “lead­ing value added tech­nol­ogy dis­trib­u­tor in the GCC and the Mid­dle East,” and dis­trib­ute ad­vanced tech­nol­ogy prod­ucts, so­lu­tions and ser­vices in the ar­eas of data cen­tres, in­fra­struc­ture, cloud, IoT, net­work­ing, col­lab­o­ra­tion, cy­ber se­cu­rity, servers, stor­age, wire­less mo­bil­ity, broad­band and In­ter­net ac­cess, con­sumer gad­gets, and more. In other words, they do quite a bit. To put it mildly.

04 CISCO

Of­fice: A004-024, Al Safouh 2, Knowl­edge Vil­lage, Dubai, UAE

Phone: +971 4-390-7777

Web­site: www.cisco.com

One of the world’s lead­ing net­work­ing com­pa­nies, Cisco’s prod­ucts and so­lu­tions are in use in ba­si­cally ev­ery coun­try on earth. The com­pany is es­pe­cially fo­cused on trans­form­ing how peo­ple com­mu­ni­cate and col­lab­o­rate – thus build­ing com­mu­nity.

BICS is a lead­ing in­ter­na­tional com­mu­ni­ca­tions en­abler and lead­ing provider of mo­bile data ser­vices around the world. Head­quar­tered in Brus­sels, but with ex­ten­sive op­er­a­tions in the Mid­dle East and Africa, their so­lu­tions are tai­lored for sup­port­ing the modern life­style of to­day’s de­vice-hun­gry con­sumer – from global mo­bile con­nec­tiv­ity, seam­less roam­ing ex­pe­ri­ences, fraud preven­tion and au­then­ti­ca­tion, to global mes­sag­ing and the In­ter­net of Things.

An­other com­pany with prod­ucts and ser­vices used al­most ev­ery­where, Citrix is a se­cure dig­i­tal workspace provider that uni­fies apps, data and ser­vices to make things sim­pler – for ev­ery­one.

Anet­work strat­egy and tech­nol­ogy com­pany, Ciena de­vel­ops and ap­plies tech­nolo­gies fo­cused on open­ness, vir­tu­al­i­sa­tion, au­to­ma­tion, col­lab­o­ra­tion, and com­mon ex­pe­ri­ence. But is also does a whole lot more than that - with an em­pha­sis on part­ner­ing with clients to de­liver the so­lu­tions that work best for them in an in­creas­ingly com­pet­i­tive global mar­ket­place where ev­ery lit­tle bit helps to get an edge on the fierce com­pe­ti­tion for cus­tomers.

06 COGNIZANT

Of­fice: 2301, Al Thu­raya Tower 2, Dubai In­ter­net City, Dubai, UAE

Phone: +971 4-434-7608

Web­site: www.cognizant.com

Cognizant is one of the world’s lead­ing pro­fes­sional ser­vices com­pa­nies, trans­form­ing clients’ busi­ness, op­er­at­ing and tech­nol­ogy mod­els for the dig­i­tal era. Their con­sul­ta­tive ap­proach helps clients en­vi­sion, build and run more in­no­va­tive and ef­fi­cient busi­nesses.

07 COMARCH

Of­fice: Build­ing 17, of­fice 158, Dubai In­ter­net City, Dubai, UAE

Phone: +971 4-447-7417

Web­site: www.comarch.com

Comarch is in the busi­ness of busi­ness so­lu­tions. To achieve that, they of­fer a suite of prod­ucts and so­lu­tions for en­ter­prise and busi­ness clients. Trans­la­tion: you think of it, and they can do it for your busi­ness - and help you gain cus­tomers. Full ser­vice in­deed.

09 EPSILON TELECOM­MU­NI­CA­TIONS

Of­fice: Boule­vard Plaza, Tower 1, Dubai, UAE Phone: +971 4-44-9570

Web­site: www.ep­silon­tel.com

Epsilon pro­vides the net­work fab­ric that pow­ers how we com­mu­ni­cate and in­ter­act – and they do that in more than 170 coun­tries. They’re all about con­nec­tiv­ity, con­nec­tiv­ity, con­nec­tiv­ity. Did we men­tion con­nec­tiv­ity?

From no fewer than 35 re­search and soft­ware de­vel­op­ment cen­tres, Gemalto cre­ates se­cure soft­ware that runs on trusted de­vices. They de­sign, per­son­alise and man­age these de­vices, pro­tect­ing the con­fi­den­tial data they con­tain and the ser­vices they make pos­si­ble – cov­er­ing on­line bank­ing, e-govern­ment, ve­hi­cle telem­at­ics and more.

Comba Tele­com is a so­lu­tions and ser­vices provider of wire­less and in­for­ma­tion com­mu­ni­ca­tions sys­tems with its own R&D fa­cil­i­ties, man­u­fac­tur­ing base, and sales and ser­vice teams. Es­tab­lished in 1997 and listed on the Hong Kong Stock Ex­change in 2003, Comba re­searches and de­vel­ops wire­less tech­nol­ogy through its R&D cen­ters in China and the US. Its man­u­fac­tur­ing base in China fea­tures ad­vanced test­ing equip­ment and one of the largest mi­crowave ane­choic test­ing cham­bers in the re­gion to en­sure qual­ity in its prod­ucts.

The name may sug­gest ex­clu­siv­ity, but any­one can work with them. Bet­ter yet, they of­fer a whole range of so­lu­tions and prod­ucts. A win-win for ev­ery­one.

13 HUAWEI

Of­fice: 23rd Floor, Thu­raya Tower 1, Dubai Me­dia City, Dubai, UAE

Phone: +971 4-368-8118

Web­site: www.huawei.com

Huawei is a lead­ing global provider of in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nol­ogy in­fra­struc­ture and smart de­vices. With in­te­grated so­lu­tions across four key do­mains – tele­com net­works, IT, smart de­vices, and cloud ser­vices – the com­pany is com­mit­ted to bring­ing dig­i­tal to ev­ery per­son, home and or­ga­ni­za­tion for a fully con­nected, in­tel­li­gent world. Huawei's end-to-end port­fo­lio of prod­ucts, so­lu­tions and ser­vices are both com­pet­i­tive and se­cure. Through open col­lab­o­ra­tion with ecosys­tem part­ners, Huawei cre­ates last­ing value for cus­tomers, work­ing to em­power peo­ple, en­rich home life, and in­spire in­no­va­tion.

Fortinet pro­vides net­work and con­tent se­cu­rity, as well as se­cure ac­cess prod­ucts that share in­tel­li­gence and work to­gether to form a co­op­er­a­tive fab­ric. Their se­cu­rity fab­ric com­bines Se­cu­rity Pro­ces­sors, an in­tu­itive op­er­at­ing sys­tem, and ap­plied threat in­tel­li­gence to pro­vide bet­ter se­cu­rity, per­for­mance, and vis­i­bil­ity and con­trol – while also pro­vid­ing eas­ier ad­min­is­tra­tion.

You name it, they do it. Spe­cial­i­sa­tions in­clude ICT so­lu­tions for en­ter­prise and busi­ness clients, as well as pro­fes­sional ser­vices. That's a lot. But in a cli­mate where busi­nesses are ex­pected to be able to do it all, it's also nec­es­sary. And that's not likely to change any­time soon.

16 MAHIN­DRA COM­VIVA

Of­fice: 1401 & 1408 – 1409, Floor 14, Al Shatha Tower, Dubai, UAE

Phone: +971-4-368-7808

Web­site: www.mahin­dra­com­viva.com

“We are among the lead­ers of mo­bil­ity so­lu­tions,” the com­pany claims. They’re not wrong: with more than 2 bil­lion sub­scribers and op­er­a­tions in more than 95 coun­tries, they boast an ex­pan­sive suite of pro­duc­tised so­lu­tions, help­ing fu­ture-proof clients.

19 NEC

Of­fice: 738, Build­ing 5EB, Dubai Air­port Free Zone, Dubai, UAE

Phone: +971 4-299-3342

Web­site: www.nec-en­ter­prise.com

As an ICT leader, NEC brings to­gether and in­te­grates tech­nol­ogy and ex­per­tise to cre­ate the ICT-en­abled so­ci­ety of to­mor­row. Oh, and to do this, they have nine re­search labs around the world em­ploy­ing roughly 1,000 re­searchers.

17 MCAFEE

Of­fice: Build­ing 16, Dubai In­ter­net City, Dubai,

UAE

Phone: +971 4-446-1480 Web­site: www.mcafee.com

Not just one of the world’s lead­ers in In­ter­net se­cu­rity and anti-virus pro­tec­tion, McAfee also pro­vides a suite of en­ter­prise so­lu­tions for busi­ness clients – though, of course, their real bread and but­ter is keep­ing net­works safe from all the evolv­ing threats that are out there.

20 NETGEAR

Of­fice: 215A, Build­ing 6E, Dubai Air­port Free Zone, Dubai, UAE

Phone: +971 4-609-1860

Web­site: www.netgear.ae

Netgear pro­vides net­work­ing, stor­age and se­cu­rity so­lu­tions without the cost and com­plex­ity of big IT. The com­pany par­tic­u­larly prides it­self on its net­work­ing prod­ucts be­ing easy to in­stall and main­tain. As the com­pany says: “we de­liver so­lu­tions you can count on, so you can spend more time on what mat­ters most – grow­ing your busi­ness.”

21 NOKIA

Of­fice: 2nd Floor, Of­fice Park, Dubai In­ter­net City, Dubai, UAE

Phone: +971 4-361-6565

Web­site: www.net­works.nokia.com

Not just phones – Nokia also pro­vides a great va­ri­ety of net­work­ing so­lu­tions and prod­ucts for en­ter­prise and busi­ness clients. And they just so hap­pen to be a global leader in the space – in­clud­ing in the Mid­dle East and Africa.

S o, yeah: Nokia is much more than phones. Like, a whole lot more than just phones. Which, of course, is quite the net ben­e­fit for busi­nesses.

Formerly known as Red­knee So­lu­tions, Optiva is a global provider of OSS/BSS soft­ware prod­ucts, so­lu­tions and ser­vices. Their so­lu­tions en­able com­mu­ni­ca­tions ser­vice providers to rate, charge, bill and man­age voice and data ser­vices, with core com­pe­ten­cies in rat­ing and charg­ing, con­verged billing, cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence man­age­ment, in­ter­con­nect billing and cus­tomer care. Their rod­ucts ad­dress wire­less, fixed line, satel­lite, WiMAX, MVNO and broad­band providers across the Amer­i­cas, Europe, Asia Pa­cific, the Mid­dle East and Africa. In sum: you name it, they can do it – and do it well.

Or­a­cle of­fers a com­pre­hen­sive and fully in­te­grated stack of cloud ap­pli­ca­tions and plat­form ser­vices, in ad­di­tion to many, many other prod­ucts and so­lu­tions for en­ter­prise and busi­ness clients around the world.

26 TATA COM­MU­NI­CA­TIONS

Of­fice: 303, Build­ing 12, Dubai In­ter­net City, Dubai, UAE

Phone: +971 2-626-6223 9 (Abu Dhabi main num­ber)

Web­site: www.tat­a­com­mu­ni­ca­tions.com

Tata Com­mu­ni­ca­tions is a global com­pany with its roots in the emerg­ing mar­kets. Head­quar­tered in Mum­bai and Sin­ga­pore, it has more than 8,500 em­ploy­ees across 38 coun­tries. The US$2.9 bil­lion com­pany is listed on the Bom­bay Stock Ex­change and the Na­tional Stock Ex­change of In­dia, and is the flag­ship telecoms arm of the US$103.3 bil­lion Tata Group. So, not only are they in­no­va­tive, they’re also big.

24 PALO ALTO NET­WORKS

Of­fice: DIC Build­ing 17, Dubai, UAE Phone: +971 4-420-6332

Web­site: www.paloal­tonet­works.com

The Cal­i­for­nia-based com­pany is one of the world’s largest ICT providers, and for a rea­son. They do it all – and have of­fices all over the world to as­sist in what­ever a client’s needs might be. Be­cause, as we know, the days of hav­ing a sin­gu­lar of­fice in a sin­gu­lar lo­ca­tion are about as an­ti­quated as the tele­gram.

F Sor nearly 30 years, Trend Mi­cro has been on a mis­sion to make the world safer for ex­chang­ing dig­i­tal in­for­ma­tion. ecu­rity is their en­tire fo­cus – and it shows. As the threats evolve, so too do their so­lu­tions for clients. Sounds like a win for any­one, re­ally - es­pe­cially busi­nesses hop­ing to keep their net­works safe from any po­ten­tial threats that might be lurk­ing out there on the In­ter­net.

25 QUAL­COMM

Of­fice: Ground Floor, Al­pha Build­ing (EIB 05), Dubai, UAE

Phone: +971 4-424-7900

Web­site: www.qual­comm.com

Name it, and Qual­comm does it. As the com­pany says: “We are en­gi­neers, sci­en­tists and busi­ness strate­gists. We are from many dif­fer­ent coun­tries and speak many dif­fer­ent lan­guages. We come from di­verse cul­tures and have unique per­spec­tives. To­gether, we fo­cus on a sin­gle goal – in­vent mo­bile tech­nol­ogy break­throughs.”

28 ULTIMUS

Of­fice: G10, DIC Build­ing 10, Dubai In­ter­net City, Dubai, UAE

Phone: +971 4-391-4717

Web­site: www.ultimus.com

Ad­mit it: their name is pretty awe­some. Founded in 1994, Ultimus pi­o­neered so­called busi­ness process man­age­ment soft­ware (BPMs). Ultimus so­lu­tions au­to­mate and op­ti­mise busi­ness pro­cesses in or­der to solve mis­sion-crit­i­cal and ev­ery­day busi­ness chal­lenges. Their so­lu­tions not only in­crease ef­fi­ciency, lower costs, and con­trol risk, but they help com­pa­nies in­crease rev­enue and im­prove cus­tomer re­la­tion­ships.

Workz con­nects and pro­tects mo­bile sub­scribers by pro­vid­ing se­cure re­mov­able or em­bed­ded SIMs and re­mote pro­vi­sion­ing so­lu­tions for con­sumer, M2M and IOT de­vices. Since their start in 1997, the com­pany claims to have se­curely man­aged more than eight bil­lion con­nec­tions in more than 50 coun­tries – al­legedly without a sin­gle data breach.

ZTE is a global leader in telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions and in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­ogy. Founded in 1985 and listed on both the Hong Kong and Shen­zhen Stock Ex­changes, the com­pany has been com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing in­te­grated end-to-end in­no­va­tions to de­liver ex­cel­lence and value to con­sumers, car­ri­ers, busi­nesses and pub­lic sec­tor cus­tomers from more than 160 coun­tries around the world to en­able in­creased con­nec­tiv­ity and pro­duc­tiv­ity.